Functional Alcoholic
by Jay Nice
Summary: Every bottle he sees, every bar he struts into—they all bring up flashbacks of his time he spent with black eyes. Yet he continues to drink. One-shot, tag to 10x12, About A Boy.


**If I had my way, this would have been published on Wednesday after the new episode aired. It was written Tuesday night at an ungodly hour, but a murderous migraine that knocked me off my feet prevented me from editing it and posting it until now. So, here's a kind of late tag to 10x12, ****_About A Boy_****, for you.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Dean, do you think I would put him through all that he's been through? Yep, don't own him.**

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Dean Winchester has never considered himself a drunk. An alcoholic, maybe, but not a drunk. Sure, he drinks more than the average Joe, but that comes with the stress of the job. Sam disapproves of his unhealthy habits, he can tell, but Dean can't bring himself to care. Sam drinks too, so how is he one to judge? There are some days to which only a glass of whiskey (or two or three or four, who's keeping count?) will satisfy him. Sam understands and does the same thing, though probably to a lesser extent. He drinks so habitually that he's shocked his liver isn't mush at this point.

John Winchester—now that man was a drunk. Dean has vivid memories of his dad passed out on the lump of cardboard and thread that somehow passed as a couch with an abandoned bottle of bourbon by a sprawled out arm. Dean remembers having to clean up after his dad on more than one occasion after he's been on a drinking spree. Thank whatever higher power is out there that he never got physical, only found the nearest place to lay, whether that be a bed or the floor, to sleep it off before combatting what would seem like the worst hangover ever. Dean's been half-seas over more times than he'd like, but has never done anything as extravagant as John-freaking-Winchester.

He sipped his first been when he was nine; it tasted awful, burning his throat and nose as it went down. He'd only tried it because Deacon had told him it was a "man's drink", but Dean found himself never wanting to be a man that day. Deacon had laughed, and it all seems like a big joke today.

Despite his rough "first time", Dean found himself slowly gravitating toward alcohol. His dad drank it all the time, so why shouldn't he? At fourteen, he found a surprising pleasure of the feeling a nice drink left, and the pride that swelled in his gut when his dad would share a beer with him. His dad practically enforced the under-aged drinking, so by sixteen Dean had a fake ID and started going to bars. The female bartenders were generally hot, the music style generally classic, and the whiskey generally crappy, but he didn't care. Sometime after he dropped out of school he actually started working at similar places to draw in some extra cash during the great Winchester expedition across the country when Dad would be gone for longer than he'd planned. When Sam hit sixteen, Dean started letting him share a beer, since the kid was practically an adult now in Winchester years.

Then came Stanford. It was like a blow to the stomach, but Dean would have been lying if he said that he hadn't seen it coming. Sam left, Dad cut off all ties to his youngest son, and Dean didn't know what to do. He hit bars more often during those four years, legally for the first time. He had thought that the burning amber liquid would dull the pain of his brother abandoning him, which was ever-present like a knife wound, but it only amplified the agony. He doesn't remember many of those nights, only recalling later a wonderful view of the porcelain throne the following mornings and his dad's wonderfully soft voice telling him to sleep it off while shoving white Advil tablets in his face.

Dad disappeared, and Dean automatically went to Sam. Jessica died, and in order to take care of his hurting baby brother, he laid off the booze for the most part. Shady bars were still like his second homes (not like he had a first), but he didn't drink to forget anymore. He didn't need to now that Sam was by his side.

But then Dad was gone, and Dean couldn't handle it. He beat up his already mutilated Baby and hit the bottle. Hard. He always saw the disappointment in Sam's and Bobby's eyes when he poured himself another glass when he's already had five (or was it six?), but he chose to disregard it. They didn't understand his pain, how much he was really _not okay_ under his brave mask. He needed the ease, the temporary lift of the weight from his shoulders.

He never truly got over Dad's death, no, Dad's _sacrifice_. He hated the idea of being alive when he should be dead, but as the years went by, he realized that being resurrected wasn't the worst thing in the world.

Sam died the first time. He got helplessly wasted. The Yellow-Eyed Demon died. Celebratory drinks. Dean's going to Hell. A farewell toast. Sam's seeing Ruby and doing some mind-exorcism thing. A bottle of Jack while wondering _why?_ The apocalypse. Strewn with unsanitary bars and even more unhealthy drinks. Cas was gone. Drunk. Bobby died. Dean never left the flask. The friggin' Trials. Poured over some cheap liquor while trying to find solutions. Every significant moment in Dean's life was marked by the consumption of alcohol.

Then he became a demon.

Dean remembers every waking second like it's a movie he's seen a billion times and memorized every line and plot twist. He drank out bars, got helplessly drunk and sang shameful karaoke, and just all-out enjoyed life like he was never able to. He downed so many shots it wasn't even funny. And now he couldn't look at the stuff without being reminded of who he was and what he did. Every bottle he sees, every bar he struts into—they all bring up flashbacks of his times bromancing with the King of Hell.

Yet he continues to drink.

It's a sort of safe-haven, he's found. The wonderful, numbing, tingling feel of drinking the blessed liquid. No matter what he did as a demon—and he did some awful things—he would continue to drink.

Despite his habits, Dean Winchester is not a drunk. He refuses to believe that.

Functional alcoholic is more like it.

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**Review? I'd love to hear your comments on this story or the new season and where you think it's going.**


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